The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) just announced a CDP Cities program that will provide a platform for cities to report greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related strategies. Three of the largest cities in the world — London, Toronto and New York — have pledged to share their carbon emissions data with CDP, and more are sure to follow.
The role cities play as leaders in carbon emissions, but also as laboratories to find solutions to climate change, is central to this effort. The effort is being spearheaded by the Clinton Climate Initiative and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. On the corporate side, it is supported by Autodesk, Microsoft, Sun Life Financial and Accenture among others.
Autodesk is touting the role of their design software to help city managers better understand their existing assets, allowing planners to develop strategy for improving the urban environment. As part of their commitment, the company is providing software licenses to the program to gather, understand and share city-wide infrastructure data.
In conjunction with the program launch, CDP Cities released a new report entitled ‘The Case for City Disclosure’, written by Accenture. It details how standard disclosure from local governments can help cities share best practice, manage risk, increase operational effectiveness and cost savings, attract investment, foster innovation and ultimately lead to safer, more prosperous cities. The report can be found here.
